


Five Things That Never Happened to Shadow Moon

by orphan_account



Category: American Gods - Neil Gaiman
Genre: F/M, M/M, Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2004
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-12-25
Updated: 2004-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-18 07:17:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/186356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>With thanks to my betas and apologies to Mr. Gaiman.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Five Things That Never Happened to Shadow Moon

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Empy (Empyreus)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Empyreus/gifts).



> With thanks to my betas and apologies to Mr. Gaiman.

-1-

Shadow knows how not to be noticed. The dignitaries at the party ignore him as  
he sits quietly in a corner with his book. He is reading the new Heinlein book,  
and his mother thinks it's too old for him but he turns the pages, fascinated.

His mother talks with the people, and sometimes comes over to check on him.  
He smiles and tells her no, he's fine. When he gets hungry, he leaves his book  
on his chair and goes to fill a plate with the finger food piled on the two long  
tables in the back of the room. He tasted the caviar once and it made him sick, so  
now he takes little meats and cheeses on toothpicks and some veggies with dip.  
He's far too young for the champagne but there is ginger ale for a thirsty boy and  
he takes his precious hoard back to where he can read.

Lazarus Long makes a smart remark and Shadow grins and grabs another  
toothpick to nibble.

"Good book?"

Shadow looks over the top of his book. The old man smiles genially at him.  
"Yes," Shadow says as politely as he can.

"I know some stories you might like."

"No, thank you." Shadow looks back at his book and hopes the old man will go  
away.

Instead, he is joined by another man. This one is younger, with no grey in his  
yellow-orange hair. "Is this him?"

"Patience," says the old man. Shadow sees his mother about twenty feet away  
and the old man follows his eyes. "That's your mother?"

"Yes."

"She calls you Shadow. Shadow Moon."

"Yes." There's something wrong with his eyes. It dawns on Shadow that one is  
fake and he tries not to stare.

"That's good," says the old man. The younger man says nothing. They aren't  
dressed as nicely as the other people at the party. They're dressed for traveling.  
There's road dust on their coats. Shadow has traveled enough to know the  
difference. He and his mother have just traveled back to New York for a few  
months and he expects to be back in Europe before school starts. He will begin  
at a school where he doesn't speak the language and all the other children will  
stare at his clumsy little frame and his travel-stained clothes and he will only be  
there for a handful of months anyway. This is his life.

The old man kneels down in front of him. "Shadow, do you like adventures?"

Shadow nods carefully.

"Would you like to be away from ..." He spreads his arms, indicating in one  
sweep all the waste and useless chatter of the partygoers, "this?"

"My mother will worry," he says, but already he's feeling the tingle in his feet,  
the anticipation in his belly of a new horizon mingled with the disappointment of  
leaving another place.

"She won't mind if you're with me," says the old man, and he offers his hand.  
Shadow sets down his book as the younger man takes his other hand.

Together, the three of them stroll out of the room, out of the embassy, out of New  
York, and into another life.

-2-

Laura's eyes are wet as he kisses her. She is crying, she is crying and he keeps  
kissing her, trying to make the tears stop.

"It's not real, puppy," she says, and Shadow wakes up.

He has pictures of Laura above his bed. He sleeps in the lower bunk so that  
when his cellmate moves in his sleep, Laura's photos undulate like she is  
breathing. She is motionless now, trapped in the moments of the images: the  
vacation they took to King's Island, out on Lake Michigan with Robbie and  
Audrey, a picture he snapped of her all unaware, sprawled and happy on the sofa  
with her skirt hiked up one creamy thigh.

"Miss you, babe," he says, touching the pictures as he does every morning. The  
loudspeaker buzzes, letting the prisoners know dreamtime is over.

"Gnnnrgh," says Low Key, as a morning greeting from the top bunk. Low Key  
never rises early when he can help it. Some mornings Shadow has to drag him  
out of his bunk so he doesn't get in trouble with the guards. This isn't one of  
those mornings.

Breakfast is breakfast. Tuesday means powdered eggs and cardboard toast with a  
pat of margarine. Shadow drinks his juice and thinks that this is the way he  
marks his days, by the food on his tray. Sometimes the "meaningful occupation"  
set before them by their keepers is changed, and this is a difference in the routine  
by which he can mark the passing seasons, as surely as by the bite of cold or  
press of humidity during the daily walks in the yard.

Today they are assembling bird feeders, and this is not a change. One cherry red  
roof bleeds into the next, and while some of the others will palm bits of glue to  
sniff later, Shadow has only a slight high from the repeated contact. At first he  
used to pinch and smash his fingers while hammering the tiny nails into the sides  
but now his hands have learned the trade and the places to be and he can  
disassociate himself from the mechanics of wood to wood.

Time to think, time to talk.

Low Key is telling a dirty joke: "And then he said, 'I didn't even know she was  
Swedish!'" The other men at their work table chuckle and Shadow composes his  
face into a smile. He wasn't paying attention at the beginning of the joke.

"What's got you, man?" asks Low Key quietly as Shadow cuts a wooden dowel  
down to the three inches he needs.

Shadow rubs a quick fingerful of glue around the tip of the dowel and pokes it  
into the small hole below the "door." He wipes away the excess glue with a rag  
and sets the feeder down to dry.

"Nothing," says Shadow finally.

"Bullshit."

"Tired. Didn't sleep well." He says this too loud and Iceman snickers.

Low Key glares. "You got a problem, Ice?"

"No." The mirth is still in his face. Low Key is small and rangy, and Shadow is  
built on a large scale, but he knows he is quiet and he tries to be kind, and this  
makes the rest think Low Key owns him. They are friends, and only friends, and  
this is not something completely understood.

Shadow loves Laura, loves her with all his heart. He knows some of the other  
men take lovers among their own, and some just take sex by force. Shadow is  
too big to be forced, and does not want to force anyone else, and he loves his  
wife.

Low Key ...

... Reaches across the table and grabs Iceman by the collar. "You sure you don't  
have a problem?"

This isn't like him. He's got a foul mouth but his temper is even. He doesn't  
pick fights and this isn't the right fight to pick. "Let him go," Shadow says. The  
guards are already walking their way.

"Problem?" asks the taller guard. His last name is Martin and he has two kids.  
Shadow doesn't ask, but Low Keys says it's good to fake an interest in the  
guards' lives. Makes them feel special, like there's a connection, and he has told  
Shadow details. Shadow is surprised at some of the details Low Key has learned.  
He can't imagine that Martin would so easily divulge to a con the names and  
ages of his children, or that his wife wears Oscar de la Renta when she wants him  
to go down on her, but these are the things Low Key has told him, and Shadow  
remembers them now as the guard asks Iceman to go work at another table for  
the rest of the shift.

Low Key knows that Laura calls him "puppy" and Shadow isn't sure when he  
told him.

Lunch is meatloaf and green beans and Low Key is sullen. Shadow gives him his  
folded slice of bread as a peace offering. Behind him he can heard someone  
choke back a laugh and hopes Low Key can't hear.

"Bird feeders don't assemble themselves" jokes Martin after lunch, and again  
Shadow's hands move without his attention. Something is bothering his  
cellmate, something bigger than just the jokes. Gone is his joking mood.

"Man, what's with *you*?"

"This isn't right," says Low Key.

"No, you've got the back facing the wrong direction." Shadow shows him. Low  
Key stares at Shadow's hands.

"Don't," Low Key says, and stops, confused. He looks at the dowels and  
mumbles "Balsa. All wrong."

Shadow has learned enough not to immediately dismiss what his friend has to  
say. What was wrong with the dowels? He counts. One is missing, a full two-  
foot rod. Interesting, but not important. Another table probably borrowed it.

"You getting sick?" Low Key's typically pale features are waxy. Shadow does  
not want to consider what happens if Low Key gets ill, because Shadow will  
certainly also catch whatever it is.

(In the night, Low Key moaned in his sleep: "No, not the right time. Don't make  
it now." Shadow could hear him, deep in his own dreams but awake enough to  
remember it was the first of August and it was important but his dream-self  
didn't know why.)

"I'm fine," says Low Key, and he passes a hand across his face, and yes, he  
seems completely recovered. Shadow doesn't understand, but it doesn't matter,  
Low Key is fine. To prove it, he tells a story about a man called John  
Barleycorn. Shadow listens as he works, and Low Key keeps talking, now about  
Guy Fawkes and how the Brits forgot the real reason they burn him every  
autumn.

And then Low Key says softly: "When they ask me, I will cry for you."

The afternoon shift ends, and Shadow goes back to his cell to take a piss before  
dinner. He runs through the letter he wants to write to Laura in his head as he  
stands there, and he is taken by dizziness. He steadies himself against the wall  
with his free hand.

The shiv is wooden, and it drives into his left kidney like his flesh is paper. He  
dribbles the last of his urine onto the floor. He can't see his assailant's face and  
then he can't see anything at all.

-3-

"It doesn't matter that you didn't believe in us. We believed ... "

"Wait a minute." Shadow turns his head and sees a fire burning beside him.  
"Wait just one bloody minute!" says the fire.

"Oh," says Mr. Ibis. Shadow has the impression there would be an eyeroll were  
one possible, but the stork keeps its gaze steady on the flames. "Him."

"Him who?"

"Shadow Moon, come before me and be not afraid!" intones the fire.

Shadow stands where he is. "I'm not afraid," he says, curious to hear it aloud.  
He is dead. Really, the worst has already happened. Fear is something he left  
behind with his body on the tree.

"You must stand before God and be judged!"

"Which one?"

The fire pauses. "What do you mean 'Which one?' God. The. Creator of the  
Universe, hello?" The fire fades. In its place, or perhaps as a result of it, stands  
a man, not quite as tall as Shadow, dark hair, very pale, with a cross expression  
on his face. There are wings.

Shadow is still not afraid. "Which god? I've met dozens over the past few  
months. Which god are you?"

"*I'm* not God," explains the man testily. "I am the Metatron. The Voice of  
God."

"Don't you have enough to do?" asks Ibis. "You've locked up most of the  
market in this country. Shadow is ours."

"You'd like to think. I have it on the best authority that Shadow is one of ours."  
The man looks at him. "What faith are you?"

"Excuse me?"

"Faith. Path. What god do you follow?"

"Odin has been employing me since before Christmas." Shadow is smiling. He  
doesn't know why.

"Yes yes," says the man. "But what god do you believe in?"

"I've met dozens, like I said. I don't suppose they need me to believe in them for  
them to exist, but I've seen them."

The man rolls his eyes. In a voice like he might use for a young child or a  
mentally retarded adult, he asks, "Did you go to church when you were little?"

Shadow remembers the cathedrals and the tiny churches his mother dragged him  
to on odd Sundays. He remembers pushing his hands together to pray to a  
bleeding figure on a cross, remembers the sound of his mother begging  
forgiveness for her sins and his. "Yes."

"There you have it. Boy's a Christian. Come with me."

Ibis sighs. "Shadow, would you prefer to go with Metatron here and be judged  
by Yahweh, or continue here to be judged?"

"He doesn't get a choice," says the Metatron. "Raised Christian, doesn't really  
believe in any of you. Sounds like mine. Now sod off, Stork Boy." There is  
anger on his face, and something else.

"Metatron, this isn't about Shadow, is it?"

"You never called!"

"I was occupied! I have my career just as you have yours!"

"Too busy to meet for a drink? Or too embarrassed? Don't want Anubis to  
know you've been dallying with the enemy?" Metatron spits this last, and there  
is color high in his cheeks.

"I'd hardly call it 'dallying,'" says Ibis, and Shadow tries not to laugh. He knows  
that the gods have sex; he himself is the product of a union with a god and a  
mortal. Poor Metatron, used and cast aside. "Can we continue this later?" Ibis  
pleads.

"No! This boy is ours!"

"No, he is not. He doesn't believe. You can see that. He believes in very little.  
He believes in us only because he has met us. And we have so few souls to usher  
these days. Allow us this one? Please?"

"Why should I?" The Metatron is sulking now, but Shadow can tell he will  
relent, even as Ibis draws him away from Shadow, and whispers in his ear. A  
slow smile blooms across Metatron's face.

Shadow remembers this dance. Near him, he senses Bast, and knows in his heart  
that the spat will end in his favor. Metatron's smile now lights his entire face.  
Ibis must be promising something grand. Shadow thinks he will never know  
what Ibis has promised, but then, no one ever should hear the secrets between  
lovers.

-4-

Shadows steps over the chain and peers into the darkness. His skin prickles. A  
voice from behind him says quietly: "You have never disappointed me."

He turns, can barely make out the ghost of his father. "You're dead. I watched  
you die. It was all another con."

"No, I died. I had to really die to make the others believe." Shadow nods. He  
understands that much. At the back of the cavern, he sees Loki's corpse, fingers  
clutched around a stick poked through his chest.

"He was supposed to throw the spear over the battle," says his father. "And  
dedicate it to me. To us."

"And you would reap all the power of the blood spilled."

"Yes."

Shadow pulls the stick. Loki comes with it, and then slides down with a  
sickening wet sound. Shadow examines the blood. God blood, not unlike the  
blood from Odin's corpse. Blood is always the key, he has learned. Sacrifice  
gives power, and the blood of gods gives the greatest power they can hope for.

"Throw it," says Odin. "Throw the spear, m'boy. Dedicate this battle. Loki can  
rise again. I can rise again. The three of us, we can ride on the power from this  
bloodshed for centuries."

Shadow goes to the edge. He can see no battle, but he knows where things are  
taking place. Backstage.

He hefts the stick, and in his mind it is a spear, and he throws it far and wide.

"I dedicate this battle ... to myself!"

The war is glorious and long and very, very bloody.

Godhood is sometimes just a matter of being in the right place at the right time.

-5-

It is night, and Shadow is cold. His cell has a thin window, through which  
moonlight creeps at certain times. This is not one of those times, and while the  
ambient light from the cellblock is bright enough to see by, he feels lost and  
alone in the darkness.

Not entirely alone.

His pictures of Laura stare at him from their place of honor, and is that  
accusation in her eyes? She shares in his guilt, for talking him into the heist, and  
even more, because he went along with it so he could provide for her just a little  
better. The face in the photos doesn't look guilty. Just sad at what those eyes  
have seen.

Shadow loves his wife. She is his lover and his friend and Low Key says she's  
been fucking Robbie for the past three months, and Shadow believes him.

The picture of Laura breathes as the top bunk moves. Like a cat, or like a vapor,  
Low Key Lyesmith crouches beside Shadow's bunk, and his eyes glow in the  
dimness.

This isn't love, Shadow knows, as the rough mouth presses against his. Emotion  
will not get in his way as he licks the scars on Low Key's lips, as he bites his  
jaw, as he draws the smaller man onto the bunk with him, atop him.

Shadow's fingers brush at the almost shaved orange-blond hair on Low Key's  
skull, and dance around his face as they come together for another kiss.

"We don't have to do this," Low Key said the first time, after he told Shadow  
about Laura and Robbie. "Maybe you want to think things over."

"I don't want to think," Shadow said. He has been very good about not thinking  
ever since.

They kiss for what seems like an hour, while Low Key slowly unbuttons  
Shadow's shirt and runs a hot hand across his chest, tweaking his nipples.  
Shadow always twitches when he does that, and he's sure that's why Low Key  
does it.

The hand moves into his pants, and he gasps, as he does every time. Low Key is  
stroking him, and it's so good.

The mouth is scarred and someday Shadow will kiss each scar and ask Low Key  
how it happened. All he has ever said is, "Don't fuck with dwarves."

Shadow doesn't want to fuck dwarves. He wants to fuck his way into Low Key's  
mouth. Sparks shoot behind his eyes when he closes them to hide away from  
Laura's eyes. Low Key's tongue rubs across the head of Shadow's cock and licks  
the tip and Shadow pulls the pillow over his face to muffle his moans. This isn't  
love, but it's sex and it's what he needs.

He isn't cold anymore, not on the outside.

Later he will give Low Key what *he* needs. Later he will roll onto his knees  
and Low Key's cock will already be slick with Shadow's spit, and he will drive  
himself in, and Shadow will stretch and burn. Later Low Key will gasp and  
groan and Shadow's cock will twitch as Low Key pounds into him again and  
again. Later he will swallow his shout as Low Key comes inside him, his own  
scream muted into Shadow's shoulder.

Now his dick is deep in Low Key's throat and Low Key is humming a song  
Shadow has never heard before and it's not love and it's not entirely right and he  
wonders if his wife is going down on Robbie right now and then Low Key  
*sucks* and Shadow comes hard. Low Key keeps sucking at him, and Shadow  
gasps as the man's tongue licks him clean.

He slides up and rests his face against Shadow's. They don't kiss, not now.  
"Better?" asks Low Key.

"Yes," Shadow chuckles, deep in his chest.

"Were you thinking about her?"

He pauses. "For a moment."

"You don't need her," says Low Key, and it is not as a jealous lover. It is as a  
friend. Shadow knows this to the core of his soul. "She's no good for you."

"I ... " Shadow has no words, so he kisses Low Key, regardless of the semen and  
spit still on his face.

"You will always have me," says Low Key, and with a gentle strength, he rolls  
Shadow onto his stomach. "All you ever need is me." His mouth is on  
Shadow's ass, and then his teeth. Hot and wet and Low Key's tongue slathers his  
opening and then dips inside.

"God," says Shadow, limply, and Loki says "Yes."


End file.
